6/18/13

The Wells Bequest, by Polly Shulman (Nancy Paulsen Books, June 2013, MG). Imagine a library that's a
repository of things--old things, fascinating things, mundane things--that you
could check out. That's the New-York Circulating Materials Repository,
where a teenager named Leo has come to study the history of robots (and how cool
is it that the library has the actual early automatons and proto-robots in the
flesh, as it were?). But Leo is interested in more than robots--he's also more
than a bit curious about time machines. He has good reason--he just saw
one in action. And it was in his room, and tiny, and he was in it, shrunk
down, with a beautiful girl.Neither time travel nor girls are part Leo's normal life, spent tinkering with
gizmos and playing computer games, the youngest, and least stellar (or so he thinks), kid in
a family obsessed with scientific accomplishments.

There at this strange and wonderful library Leo meets the girl he's going to
travel through time with--Jaya, the head page. Leo begins to wonder what
this wonderful library might have in the way of time-travel
devices....and finds his way to the Wells Bequest, and H.G.Well'stine-machine. Because this library contains fictional devices, and the Wells Bequest is one of many collections from stories here in our world for real.

Leo knows he and Jaya are going to time travel....but he doesn't know why, and
the time-machine in the library has never worked. But when one of the other library
pages turns twisted, and starts threatening to use Nikola Tesla's death ray to
destroy New York, obviously Leo and Jaya are going to have to find a way to go
back to Tesla's time, and keep the secret of the death ray from being stolen.

A dash to London, to recover the miniature working model of Well's Time Machine
as it materializes on its trip from the past, back to New York in Jule's
Verne's miraculous steampunky ship, the Épouvante (from
Master of the World), then off to 1895 New York, with the help of a handy
shrink way....and then they must find Tesla while navigating the strange city
of the past.

It is an excellent book, and pretty much has it
all--the appealing, believable characters (not the bad guy so
much, butJayaand Leo), the really really cool
premise of fantastical objects being real, and the shear fun of the way the
premise and the plot combine. There's a bit of romance, which Leoangstsbelievably about, there are
grown-ups actively involved (which makes the plot more believable), but not taking over from the smart young
protagonists, and there's Mark Twain. And Jaya's family is from India, making this multicultural sci fi/fantasy!

What more can one ask for? Indeed, right from the first chapters, I was pretty sure this was going to be a good one, and I wasn't disappointed.

TheWellsBequestis a companion to The Grimm Legacy, which first
introduced the Circulating Materials Repository, and one of its more
magical collections. But there's absolutely no need to have
read that one first.

You know, I loved the first one, and this one sounds great in theory (and you liked it!), but...I'm not sure it's for me. I think I like time travel but not time machines. Or steampunk. But will try on strength of Grimm Legacy + your review!

It is true, you loved the first one more than me, and I can't remember why I didn't love the first one more...but I think you will like this one too. The fictional stuff is still really cool! And I liked the main characters lots.

This looks awesome, especially since I am a huge fan of Warehouse13 and they have HG Wells thread running through the series, so this looks like the Middle Grade equivalent. Thanks so much for joining us on the Kid Lit Blog Hop. Cheers Julie Grasso (Hostess)